


Truths (Alt 3x17)

by vox_ex



Series: Supergirl Redux [5]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Big Sister Alex Danvers, Even though Lena already Knows, Fix-It of Sorts, Identity Reveal, Kara Danvers Needs a Hug, Lena Luthor Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-05-03 20:52:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 21,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14577420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vox_ex/pseuds/vox_ex
Summary: An alt take on Lena and Kara's conflict in 3x17 and the eventual fight to save Sam from Reign.





	1. Lena

**Author's Note:**

> You knew this was coming. I had to do an Identity reveal for 3x17 because well, that's kind of my thing now I think. 
> 
> Written fast and edited not because it's after midnight here but I wanted to get this out.

There are things we never tell anyone.

Things we hold onto for so long we forget what it is to live without them.

They become the scars we hide.

The reflection we cannot face. 

And we learn to bear the weight of them. 

Sometimes out of love. 

Sometimes out of sacrifice. 

Always out of fear. 

Because they are meant to be unspoken. 

Because they are meant to be unknown. 

And because we cannot imagine what would happen when if they were no longer these things.

Lena watches Kara as she walks among the remnants of what is left of both their secrets and she thinks how there can be no going back to them now. 

How too much has happened and too much will be said. 

She picks up the piece of glass at her feet and turns it over in her hands. 

The edges bite into the fragile skin of her palms. 

They had tried so hard to be careful, missed so much because of it, and still, the things they had tried to protect were broken. 

She wonders now what will be left. 

Wonders if it will be enough. 

\---- ---- ---- ---- 

Kara’s voice is quiet, and hesitant —disbelieving. 

Lena tries not to look at her. 

Thinks that if she does then she will not be able to say the things she needs to now. 

Knows that if she does that she may say the things she cannot yet admit. 

She looks around the room focusing on every detail she can find. 

She goes through the motions of her interrogation. 

Gives answers to questions when they’re asked but never saying more than that. 

They ask her what she knows. 

They ask her how. 

They ask her why. 

She recites the words like findings; cold, clinical, detached. 

But then Alex asks her how she missed it. 

“When I examined her, I found nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Then you were looking for the wrong things”

Asks her how she knows. 

“So what did you find?”

“After sequencing her DNA and comparing Sam’s blackouts to Reign’s attacks, I came to the conclusion that Sam and Reign are one and the same…”

And she has to give the one answer, the one truth, she cannot disconnect herself from. 

…Sam is Reign.”

She realizes then that it’s the first time she has said the words aloud, admitted them even to herself, and there is an anger she finds in them.

Anger for the things she’s lost. 

“So for three weeks, you’ve been harboring and abetting a mass murder”

Anger for the things she has left to lose.

“I helped a friend.”

“And you didn’t think to bring this to our attention?”

Anger at a world that demands reparation for her family’s sins. 

“The attention of a clandestine organization that has never formally acknowledged its existence to me? No. I am not your employee. I have not signed a contract nor sworn an oath.”

Briefly her eyes find Kara’s and she sees anger there too. 

“I conducted an L-Corp experiment using L-Corp technology on L-Corp property.”

More than just her own. 

“What did you discover?”

She tries to retreat to the comfort of detachment. 

“I was hoping to isolate the spark that turned Sam into Reign, but I didn’t get a chance to finish”

She sees the tears in Kara's own eyes and tries not to be the one who breaks first. 

“Weeks with Reign… Do you have any chance of tracking down the Worldkillers?”

“No” 

The questions drift to the others in the room, but neither she or Kara pay attention to them. 

Lena knows Kara is looking at her, knows she is putting it all together, and soon her voice interrupts the others. 

“How, how did you keep her contained”

Lena looks up at the ceiling, trying to keep the tears from falling. She knows what this revelation will mean, how it is more personal than all the others, how it will hurt them both. 

“Lex kept a vault in the Lab, When I took over L-Corp, I inherited all of its assets, for good or for ill”

Lena pauses, looks at Kara despite everything telling her not to. 

“I used Kryptonite.”

And it’s then the anger becomes something else. 

Disappointment. 

Distrust. 

Guilt. 

It becomes all the things they each feared their secrets could mean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's short, but the next chapter would be longer. Let me know if you think it's worth continuing.


	2. Kara

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well it's longer...so at least there's that. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone for reading, commenting, and Kudo"ing"

It would be simple to say that she knows nothing else.

It would be simple to blame a world that taught her it was safer not to be who she was.

It would be simpler, but it would not be the truth.

The truth is that a part of Kara died with Krypton.

It remained among the ashes and the embers of her home.

It was the first piece of herself she lost, but it would not be the last.

She would lose other parts of herself: her father’s name, her mother’s memory, the language of her people, the faith of her god.

Some would be taken from her; some surrendered, others forgotten.

But all were gone.

For a long time, she did not know who she was without these things.

She tried to replace them the best she could.

She learned to be someone else.

She built a world out of the things she had salvaged and the things that she found.

But a part of the girl who lost these things always remained inside of her.

It was the first part of herself she learned to hide, but it would not be the last.

Because to forget what she had already lost felt unimaginable, but to lose it all again would be unbearable.

So she hid the parts of herself she thought this world could never understand, that it could never accept.

She learned to live with her past as one learns to lives with grief — out of self-preservation.

And she thought it would be enough to stay hidden. That it would keep those she loved safe.

But too soon she learned her secrets were not hers alone to keep, that those who kept them with her carried their burdens all the same — burdens they did not ask for, burdens they did not deserve.

And Kara knows what it cost them.

She sees it every day in Alex’s eyes.

She feels it every time she thinks of what her sister’s life could’ve have been without her in it.

She thinks of it whenever she thinks of Eliza and Jeremiah and all the pain she could have spared them.

It is a guilt she carries deep inside herself among the things she has lost and the things she has hidden.

And that is the truth.

That is the answer she has given herself— the reason she cannot tell Lena the truth — because Lena already knows what it was to carry the weight of someone else’s secrets, of someone else’s past, and she did not deserve hers too. Kara could not ask her to bear that burden knowing all that it meant to do so.

So she gave Lena everything else of herself she thought she could.

And for so long it felt like that could be enough.

\---- ---- ---- ----

Kara stares at her boots as she walks through what remains of Lena’s lab. None of it is recognizable to her, she has no point of reference for what things are or where they should have been, but she follows Alex nonetheless, sorting the wreckage as she goes, trying to piece together the fragments into something tangible.

In a way, she is trying to do the same with Lena.

It’s just the three of them now, and for a moment she stops and looks over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of Lena as she picks up a piece of glass, the hopelessness of their task drawing her shoulders forward in resignation.

She would never have thought it all could have led to this. She would never have thought they could know so little about each other as they do right now.

Alex rests a hand on her shoulder, and Kara loses sight of Lena once more.

“Are you ready.”

And she isn’t.

She isn’t ready to talk to Lena; she isn’t ready to accept what has happened to Sam… she isn’t ready for any of it.

But she straightens herself to prove otherwise.

“Yes”

Alex nods and runs a shaking hand through her hair, her emotions as raw and unsteady as Kara’s own, stuck in the same cycle of guilt and anger.

None of them are ready.

\---- ---- ---- ----

Lena doesn’t argue.

She doesn’t ask where they’re going.

She barely stops to read the papers pushed in front of her before signing where they tell her.

Kara stands back from it all, but never loses sight of her.

She watches as Lena goes through the motions in silence, falling in step behind Alex as she is shuffled from one room to the next.

It makes her realizes how vulnerable Lena is here, how exposed.

And there is a part of Kara that wants to yell at her for how reckless she was and how much danger she put herself in, that wants to hold her and keep her safe from the things to come.

But there is also a part of her that can’t help but feel abandoned and betrayed even though she knows has not earned the right to be.

By the time she finds herself face to face with Lena, she is at no less at odds with these conflicts within herself.

The room is quiet, and the heavy tension between them all speaks of the nature of the revelations to come.

Kara looks to J’onn before they start, and she knows the firm look in her eyes will hold him to his promise not to read Lena’s mind.

It was the one things she insisted on.

“Please state your name.”

Lena’s voice is even and reserved.

“Lena Kieran Luthor.”

Kara watches as her eyes move about the room, looking everywhere it seems but at her.

“Where should I begin?”

Kara takes a deep breath, her voice hesitating.

“How long has this been going on?”

Lena maintains the steady stillness in her voice.

“Three weeks.”

“And what exactly have you been doing with Sam…for weeks?”

Kara regrets the way the words sound as soon as she says them, hates herself even more for the anger that she feels knowing somewhere inside herself that Lena has done nothing to deserve it.

“When I When I first suspected that Sam was more than she knew, I took her to a secret lab in L-Corp, where I conducted a series of tests…With her consent.”

Around her, Kara can hear the accusations against Lena building and the anger in her voice rising in return. And she wants it all to stop, she wants to defend Lena like she always has, but she can’t. She needs to know what happened…they needed to know what happened.

“What did you discover?”

Her voice is after than before, and Lena looks at briefly at her, her eyes retreating back into a determined blankness.

“I was hoping to isolate the spark that turned Sam into Reign, but I didn’t get a chance to finish.”

Kara weighs the words....

“Weeks with Reign”

...the improbability of them.

“Do you have any chance of tracking down the Worldkillers?”

“No”

Kara feels herself still torn again between guilt and anger, but there is also fear.

She listens to the others calculate their odds and knows without listening how bad they are.

But she can’t accept them.

There has to be a way to stop the World Killers.

There has to be a way to save Sam.

They can’t let her hurt anyone else.

They can’t let her destroy herself.

And it’s with those last thoughts Kara’s feels her chest start to tighten.

“How, how did you keep her contained.”

She listens as Lena answers and struggles to keep her voice steady.

“Lex kept a vault in the Lab… When I took over L-Corp, I inherited all of its assets, for good or for ill.”

Kara looks into Lena’s eyes and realizes they’re both holding back tears, aware already of what the answer is and what it will mean.

“I used Kryptonite.”

And the words hurt in a way she never thought words could, in a way that leaves her numb and  
fills her with regret.

\---- ----- ---- ----

Kara had wanted to protect Lena, she had wanted to keep her safe, but she also had wanted to protect herself from the pain of losing her.

She had lied for her own heart as much as Lena’s.

But for the first time, she understands the pain of not knowing as much as she feared the pain of loss.

And she doesn’t know if Lena could ever forgive her for that kind of pain, she doesn’t know if she would deserve it even if she did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes? No? Keep Going? Quit while I still can? Let me know.


	3. Out of the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We all fight the same demons sometimes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup, well, after all this time, this is all I have to give. Hopefully, it's enough for now to keep you all interested. I decided to kind of combine the conflict in 3x17 and 3x18 because I feel like the story works better that way, and Kara having James spying on Lena just felt to OOC. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks as always for reading. My sleep deprived brain thanks you.

Looking out onto the city, Lena can't help but be reminded that there is a cold darkness at the edge of the world held back from us, just far enough away to leave us unaware of how close we are at any moment to losing everything. 

But Lena knew what truths that darkness held. 

She knew how easy it was to wake up one morning to a world you didn't recognize and a life you didn't ask for. 

She knew it when her mother died. She knew it when she lost Lex. And she knows it now. 

It's why she risked everything. 

Because she couldn't be that lost again. She couldn't lose someone else she loved to the madness inside them. 

But she had wagered everything she had against the demons in her head...and they had won. 

\---- ---- ---- 

The room was empty now, but it was smaller than before somehow, littered with the regret of absent words and Kara felt like she couldn't breathe. 

She knows she should have said something. She should have told Lena she understood, that she knew she was only trying to save Sam and that Lena would never hurt her. 

But she had said nothing, silenced by the feeling of grief and pain and irrational blame.

She had made Lena think she couldn't trust her. 

She had broken every promise she ever made her. 

And she wants to forget the anger of her grief and the cruelty of her cowardice. 

But it is easier to be angry than afraid. 

\---- ---- ---- ----- 

Lena hears her name in the distant timbre of Kara's voice, and it is harder than she is willing to admit to stop herself from finding comfort in the sound, from wanting the warmth and safety of Kara's arms around her. But Lena has lived without the promise of such things before, and she can learn to do so again. 

The footsteps behind her slow to a stop and Lena turns, the sight in front of her not at all what she expected.

Kara's eyes are unsure and her hands unsteady, but her shoulders are held firm and ready for the weight they have been built to carry. 

And Lena thinks that maybe this is the closest she will ever come to knowing who Kara really is. 

That this is Kara Zor-el. 

"Why didn't you come to me. I would have made sure Sam was safe. I would have made sure you were safe."

Lena hears the unspoken question in Kara's words.

"My friend came to me, and she was alone and afraid. I had to do something. It was her secret, not mine." 

And by the look in her eyes, Lena knows Kara hears the same question in response and feels like all their secrets have been replaced with this one question. — Why didn't you trust me? 

It's a question neither of them has the answer to. 

But it makes Lena rid herself of one more lie. 

"There's...there's something else I have to tell you."

And she hopes the implication is clear. That this is something between them. Something she owes Kara and no one else. 

"Lena if there's something else about Sam, we need to know."

"It's not about Sam...it's, the kryptonite... it wasn't Lex's, it's mine."

She pauses only to breathe, her next words stumbling out quickly as she steps forward, closer to Kara then she's been in days. 

"Reign kept adapting, I had to make it more stable, stronger, but I don't know how much longer it will work against her."

She watches as the anger and sadness in her eyes shifts into something like panic. 

"I-I trusted you. When the rest of the world was ready to pass you off as the new Lex Luthor."

And every time Lena thinks there is nothing left to break, another piece shatters. 

"I am trying to stop Reign, I am trying to save Sam. This has nothing to do with you."

Kara's words are calloused and broken, barely held together.

"It has everything to do with me."

Her own voice hardens in reply. And God, why can't there be anything but this fucking anger and distrust between them!

"Are you really that naive? Or do you just really have a God complex after all?"

The panicked look in Kara's eyes becomes one of defeat and Lena begs herself to take the words back, but like so much else that had already happened, she couldn't. And there was no one to blame but herself. If Kara was a coward then so was she. 

"You think I need to be reminded of who Reign is? Of what she can do? That I have failed time and time again to stop her?"

Kara continues in Lena's silence. Her voice hollow and exhausted. 

"I can ever forget how weak I am or how fragile the people I am trying to protect are."

Lena hears Kara's struggle to hold back the truth. 

"I am not a God, I never tried to be. But this world has held me up like one, tried to break me like one. I never thought you would too."

And when she hears the desperation in Kara's words, she does too, but before either one of them gives in the room dims an unnatural hue, and the blue of Kara's eyes darken. 

They both realize too late that something is wrong. 

Kara stumbles in front of her and Lena's heartbeat quickens. Fear overcoming anger as she reaches toward her, trying to keep her standing, but Kara's weight grows heavy in her arms and they both collapse to the ground. 

\---- ---- ---- ----

Alex had guided Kara to the med bay against every ounce of protest she could manage. 

But now she was quiet, somewhere else, her mind trapped in her memories with every bit of pain and fear made real again by Lena's words and the darkness of Juru and by the images of Sam and Reign that warred in her head. 

Kara holds her hands closed tightly in her lap as if trying to make sure she can still contain the strength within them. 

_"You are no god, just as I am no devil."_

The words mean so much more now. Hold so much more truth. And the fearful broken feeling in her chest that reminds her of the things she too had been capable of and the hate inside her that had once been let go. 

Her hands tremble at the memory, at the look of pain in Alex's eyes, at the choice she had to make, what it cost her to wager her sister's life.  
She realizes that it is the same choice Lena has to make now with Sam, the same wager. 

Kara feels a gentle pressure against her hands as Alex kneels in front of her and takes them in her own, slowly easing them open again. 

"I watched Jeremiah choose to leave you because of me, I watched you have to let him go again, I watched J'onn risk everything, I saw the pain in your eyes when you didn't know if you would save me or kill me. 

Alex's forehead rests against hers in quiet reassurance. 

"I thought I was protecting her. I didn't want that kind of burden to be hers too. But I was so scared of causing her that kind of pain that I couldn't even be there to save her from it! I couldn't be there to help her save Sam. I promised to protect her and I couldn't. I promised to always be there and then I wasn't."

Kara closes her eyes against the tears that fall. 

"And now, now I know what it would feel like for her to find out the truth. For her to think I didn't trust her enough to know it. And what if that is even more painful? I, I made the wrong choice, and I can't ever take that back".

\---- ---- ---- ----

A part of Lena had always thought that if she could be strong, then she could forget what it felt like to feel helpless.

That it would take away the memories of the scared and broken girl she had been. 

That she would be absolved of her family’s past. 

But it the end it didn’t matter, the world had broken her all the same. 

Lena had watched as Kara's back arched off the ground, had listened to the quick and shallow breaths that made their way from her lungs.

It had felt so much like watching Sam. 

Felt so much like it was her fault. 

Lena’s eyes shut tight, her heart hammering in her chest at the memory. 

She can still hear the worry laced in Alex’s voice. 

She can still feel the way Kara’s body went still in her arms. Feel the relief when a deep breath filled her lungs again. 

She remembers watching the confusion and panic return to her blue eyes as they opened to a sky reddened in shadows. 

"Sam…I saw Sam."

She remembers the demons that haunt them both. 

How much she wagered to fight them. 

How much she already lost. 

How much there was left to lose. 

And despite her strength, she has never felt more helpless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Feelings? Things you'd like to see going forward? Let me know.


	4. Into the Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are different kinds of sacrifice. 
> 
> This picks up in Lena's thoughts from the last chapter [but it's been so long I don't expect you to remember what those were :)]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I want to thank all of you who took the time to check out the story teaser I posted for "Lazarus" and for all the encouragement and feedback you all left. As soon as I finish this I'm going to start it in earnest and I'm both excited and nervous to veer farther off cannon with that one. If you haven't checked it out yet or want to leave a comment about what you might like to see, I'm always up for ideas. 
> 
> As for this fic, yup it's still here, and yup it's still unfinished, but with a couple days off work and some insomnia induced writing attempts I managed a new chapter at least.
> 
> Another reminder...this is as close to cannon so far as the large plot holes will allow, but will take a turn going forward. Mon-el and the legion are there is nothing between him and Kara other than some good old friendship.

Lena finds herself alone again. Cast away to wait with Kara’s words still ringing in her ears. 

“Sam…I saw Sam.”

She concentrates on the feeling of her hands opening and closing. 

Feels her heart finally slowing. 

But still, her mind won’t stop. 

Images of Sam and Kara blend together with the mess of equations and calculations she keeps reciting in her head, numbers repeating over and over useless solutions that mean nothing. 

Nothing to stop Reign. 

Nothing to stop the shadow moving across the sky. 

Nothing to stop the feeling of running out of time. 

Fingers dig into her palms until her knuckles turn white and then relax again. 

It was a familiar ritual born of years of fighting back against the anxious thoughts in her head. 

Thoughts that told her nothing was safe, that no one was trusted, that it was only her against the demons in her head and the dangers of the world. 

Because for too long she knew nothing else, for too long there was no one else. 

She learned it was safer to be alone. 

But still she had tried. 

First with Lex. 

Then Jack. 

Then Sam. 

She let each of them know a part of herself. 

She became a sister, a lover, a friend. 

But at each she failed. 

The sound of footsteps brings her attention back to the long corridor in front of her. 

Lena can see the unsteadiness Kara tries to hide. 

Hears it in the steps that are a little too heavy. 

Her hands open and close. 

She adds Kara’s name to the list in her head. 

Alex comes up beside her and rests a hand on her shoulder in a silent gesture that holds a kind of apology. 

And she knows that if anyone can understand what all of this feels like it’s Alex. 

Alex who had been trying to save Sam. 

Alex who loved Kara. 

Who feared losing them both just as much. 

They both stand as Kara reaches them and Alex voices the concern that Lena couldn’t. 

“You should be in the med bay.”

Kara doesn’t even hesitate to answer.

"I'm fine."

Alex shifts her stance. 

“You are not fine.”

Kara just ignores her and presses on drawing her sister back into the roles they are forced to play in front of Lena. 

“What do we know Agent Danvers.”

Lena hears Alex’s resigned sigh and tries to break the tension between them. 

“That eclipse was like someone grabbed on the moon and pulled. The Earth and the Moon run on an axis, and no amount of technology can change that.”

Kara looks at her, nodding slightly at the logic behind her words as they continue walking. 

“That’s because this isn’t technology. This is older than science. Reign, Purity, Pestilence, they were all created by Kryptonian witches to do one thing, kill the world, and now that they're together, they're doing that."

A question raises in Lena’s mind. 

"How do you know that?" 

"There's no apocalypse in the Book of Rao, but there are parables about witches joining hands to create a blessed darkness."

Lena’s thoughts shift to the books left to her by her mother. Worn and yellowed pages that spoke of Celtic myths about gods brought to battle. 

"So, whatever ritual the World killers are doing, it's creating the eclipse.”

Kara nods and they reach the others. 

J’onn looks to Winn. 

"How long have we got?"

"Two hours until totality."

Lena watches Alex look back to Kara. 

"You said you dreamed of Sam."

"It's the same dream I've been having for the last year. I'm in the Kryptonian valley, Juru. Normally, I see the World Killers, but today, I saw Sam."

Lena watches the exchanges around the table, unsure of her place among them, but their faces aren’t hard to read, and their questing glances and uneasy language does nothing to quiet the anxiety that has been steadily mounting in Lena’s chest. She has to say something. Do something. 

"Well, it's not a dream, the valley's real.”

She pauses and looks to each of them again. But no one stops her, so she continues. 

“When I was working with Sam, she told me of this place. It's an alternate dimension that she would go to when Reign would take over."

Alex shakes her head slightly. 

"But how could Supergirl see it?" 

But Lena doesn’t know the answer to that. She only knows how Sam got to that place. 

"On Mars, my people would share memories, emotions, experiences. Sometimes, you would experience a particularly strong mind wholly by accident."

Alex picks up J’onn’s reasoning. 

"Like picking up a radio broadcast?"

Winn seems more skeptical.

"So, Supergirl just picked up an alternate dimension."

But the logic of it all starts to form in Lena’s head. 

"It's possible. And if we could go in there, maybe we could wake Sam up and she could send us a message to say where the Worldkillers are."

J’onn asks the question they all must have. 

"How do we send Supergirl back to this valley?" 

They all look to her again but it’s Kara that speaks up. 

"You were able to send Sam into the Valley, could you send me?"

But before she can answer, even think if it’s possible, Alex cuts in.

"No.”

“Alex.”

“No. You're already weak and we know nothing about that place.”

Lena can hear the worry in Alex’s voice, but she knows already that this a fight Kara will win. 

“Well, it’s all we’ve got unless someone else has another plan.

They don’t, she knows it and so does Alex. 

"Can Brainy link her to me?"

Alex’s words a quiet and Lena feels the weight of glances that pass between Kara and the others as Mon-el simply nods. 

"It's possible."

Alex looks back to her sister.

“If you’re going, you’re not going alone.”

Lena closes her hands, the thought of having to send Kara back to that place turning her knuckles white again and this time she holds them closed until the feeling from them fades and wishes she could feel as numb. 

\---- ---- ---- ---- 

Alex knows the guilt her sister feels. 

She can see it in Lena too.

She can feel it in herself. 

And she knows how quickly that kind of guilt can destroy. 

How easily it can become reckless and dangerous. 

She sees it in Kara’s insistence of self-sacrifice. 

In Lena’s quiet acceptance of her sister’s misplaced anger. 

In her own doubt and distrust. 

But she will not let them lose themselves in it. 

If they are going to save Sam. 

They are going to need each other. 

They can all fall apart after if they need to, but not now. 

Now they need to a way to find Reign. 

Brainy seems quiet at first, as if taken back by their request, but after a second he starts to relay their plan back to them as if confirming its ridiculousness, and hearing it out loud from someone else, Alex worries not for the first time that this is a very bad plan. 

“Let me get this straight. Your going to use electrical impulses to send Supergirl back into the same dark valley she just came out of. Then you want me to broadcast her consciousness out of said magical dark valley dimension using the same 31st century technology which allowed me to access her mind when Reign punched her into a coma, technology specifically designed to enter human consciousness not alternate realms, just so you can go with her to find Sam and hope she can tell you where Reign is.”

Kara is the one who answers him. 

“Yes”

And you want me to do this all before the solar eclipse achieves totality, which will happen in less than two hours.

“Yes.”

And for a second, Alex thinks maybe she is relieved that it is all too impossible for them to actually go through with, but the relief is short-lived.

“Okay.”

And she finally finds her voice, almost disbelieving. 

“Really?” 

Brainy nods again and just starts to walk past them. 

“Yes.”

Kara starts to follow before a sudden voice stops her. 

“Wait”

Alex hears the halting protest and thinks for a second maybe she was the one who said it, but soon realizes it was Lena who has stopped them. 

“I'm coming too."

Alex watches as the questioning look in her sister’s gaze becomes one of abject refusal. 

“No. We’re not risking that."

And Alex knows her sister is already worried enough about her, that she doesn’t need to be worried about Lena in that place too. But as Kara tries to move forward again, Lena steps in front of her. 

“If I’m sending you into that place. I’m coming too.”

And then Alex can’t help but wonder then if it’s out of guilt or fear. 

“I spent the last month working with Sam and Reign, every day. I know how to reach her. If anyone can get through to her, it's me. I get that you may not trust me right now, but trust that I want to get Sam back.”

But by the desperation in Lena’s voice she thinks maybe it is something else. That there is another reason. 

Alex looks at her sister again.

Sees the hesitation in her eyes. 

Sees the moment Kara gives in. 

Because Lena is giving her the chance to do the one thing she couldn’t before, to be there for her, to help her save Sam. 

“We will. I promise”

And those last two words scare her more than any other because Kara thinks she has already broken one promise to Lena, and Alex knows she will die before she breaks another. 

\---- ---- ---- ---- 

Kara closes her eyes and grips her cape in her hands, testing the strength that remains and wonders how it could possibly be enough to keep the promise she just made. 

“The eclipse is diminishing your strength severely.”

She opens her eyes to find Brainy in front of her and lets the fabric of her cape fall away as she clears her throat and tries to ignore the implication of his words, of what she herself already knows. 

“How's it coming?”

“Lena's technology will send you into this dark valley, but by me adding the weight of two more minds to yours will weaken you further. Your biology is impressive, but even you weren't built to be an inter-dimensional portal.”

She nods but says nothing, looking instead to find Mon-el. 

“Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Yeah, everything okay?”

She looks around, making sure they’re alone. 

“If this thing goes sideways, I need you to promise me something.”

“What is it.”

“Pull Alex and Lena out, but leave me in until I finish the mission.”

Mon-el looks at her confused. 

“You heard Brainy. This could hurt you, this could kill you.”

Kara shakes her head. 

“This is all we've got, you have to promise me.”

He looks at her again, confusion replaced by concern, but his voice is quiet and composed. 

“I promise.”

And she thinks she should thank him, but it seems wrong somehow, so she just nods, and he does the same. Maybe both of them wondering about all the words that have gone left unsaid in their lives. But she isn’t left to wonder alone for long as J’onn comes up beside her.

“Your sister asked the same thing once you know.”

Kara looks at him, a silent question in her eyes. 

“I may not be able to read your mind, but I can read his.” 

J’onn nods in Mon-el’s direction and she thinks she knows what he means, but she asks anyway.

“The black mercy?”

“We almost lost you both because of it.”

She wants to reassure him. 

“We’ll be alright.”

But even she’s not sure she believes it. 

“It’s not them I’m worried about.” 

Kara turns to look at him. 

“This isn’t the same. I’m not ready to say goodbye this time.”

But J’onn hands are the ones to find her shoulders this time and she lets herself be pulled forward gently, the ghost of memories between them. 

“Promise me you’ll remember that.”

And as an errant tear marks her cheek she finds herself making another promise she isn’t sure she is strong enough to keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the end of this, there will be some resolution between Lena and Kara I promise. I won't leave them in the same "will they/won't they" limbo the show did. 
> 
> Feel free to leave something below, and as always, thanks for reading.


	5. The Promise of Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena and Kara start to understand how wrong they each were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things will start to go off-cannon in the next chapter. It just felt like a more natural way to reach a conclusion and push Kara and Lena to a resolution...here's hoping I'm right.
> 
> Thanks to everybody for hanging on to this with me, especially Earthling3 and nanialbee9.
> 
> A quick thanks also to FompFloat who gave me a little extra motivation to get this chapter up a little sooner than I thought I'd be able to after they put up a new update for their fic "Against Monsters We Are Only Human".

Lena is watching Alex in the mirror as she finishes the braid her own shaking hands couldn’t when the other women’s voice suddenly breaks the silence between them.

“You know I used to braid Kara’s hair when we were younger."

And despite everything she finds herself unable to restrain a smile.

“I can’t imagine her sitting in one place for that long.”

Alex lets out a muted laugh.

“She was really quiet when she first moved in with us actually, she didn’t, she liked just being… still sometimes.”

Lena doesn’t miss the slight pause in Alex’s words, the careful practiced language, but she understands the meaning behind what isn’t said as much as what is when she pictures a young Kara finding comfort in such a simple gesture from her sister.

The silence resumes for a second with a simple nod from Lena and gentle smile from Alex, but there is no room to dwell in memories for long and soon Alex is asking Lena the one thing she knows she has been trying to hold back.

“Can I ask you something ?”

“You want to know why I didn't come to you when I found what Sam really was ?”

“I'm the one who did the first tests on her and I'm the one that told her to come to her friends about her illness. So, why not just tell me the truth ?”

Lena sees the guilt in Alex’s eyes.

Wishes she could have spared her the pain of learning about Sam, of realizing it was her friend who almost killed Kara that night.

Thinks not for the first time how different this would have been for all of them if it hadn’t been her at all.

“I was trying to protect her. I didn’t know what they would do to her if they found out.”

Alex’s shoulders fall slightly as she runs a hand through her hair nervously.

“You knew about me working for the DEO didn’t you?”

“Lillian is not discreet about her enemies, even with me.”

“But you trust me, you trust Supergirl, you had to know we would help Sam.”

“I couldn’t, not with this.”

And Lena knows it hurts to hear that. To hear that Lena didn’t think she could protect Sam, that telling Alex would also mean telling the DEO and while Lena trusted Alex and Kara she couldn’t be sure she trusted who they worked for.

“I was just trying to protect her. I needed to protect her and Ruby.”

She knows the answer isn't enough, isn't what Alex wanted to hear, but it’s the only thing she can think of to say to make her understand because it’s the same reason she has for keeping Kara’s secret.

She watches silently as the Agent looks down at her hands, wonders if she finds them as useless as her own. 

“Is Ruby safe?”

And Lena is happy then she can give her at least some small comfort. 

“She is, I promise.”

Alex nods and then starts toward the door.

“We should go”

Lena follows but stops when Alex pauses, looking back at her, one hand on the door still.

“I just, I think you should know that Supergirl is the one who wanted to save them. Before any of the rest of us, before she knew about Sam, she was the one who knew the only way to stop them was to try to save them.”

And Lena can’t help but wonder if Alex has figured it out then, that she knows her secret isn’t the only one Lena knows.

\---- ---- ---- ----

Entering the room Alex doesn’t miss the reluctant way J’onn looks away from her sister or the sudden distance Kara creates between them as she wipes at her face and smooths her skirt nervously before looking at her and leveling a steady voice in her direction.

“You’ve got what you need?”

Alex nods at looks at Lena and Brainy expectantly as she waits for them to explain the full plan to the others because honestly, she only understands enough of the science to know that it could go very very wrong very very quickly, and she doesn’t think that is a helpful observation at this point. But then, as she hears Lena clear her throat nervously, she realizes Kara isn’t the only one who is struggling to hide their emotions.

“By studying Reign’s transformation when it occurred due to pain or anger I was able to determine that she and Sam share a neural connection that is activated at the cellular level. And while I haven’t yet been able to figure out why sometimes Reign is present and sometimes she isn’t, I was able to isolate the specific frequency at which to administer electrical impulses in a way that bypassed the cellular trigger so that Sam could enter into the alternate space that both she and Reign could occupy.

“And that’s how you get me in?”

Alex doesn’t miss the way Kara’s eyes stay on Lena’s but Brainy cuts in before she can respond.

“Yes. We match your neural signal to that same frequency and poof.”

Winn looks at Brainy quizzically.

“Poof?”

Brainy glances at Winn and then back to her, confused in his own right.

“Would Abracadabra have been more appropriate?”

Alex just shrugs her shoulders in wordless reply as the others all give the Coluan a pointed look before he offers an apology.

“Sorry.”

But Kara quickly redirects the conversation.

“So I go into Juru and you use the mind bridge thingy to connect Alex and Lena to me just like before?”

“Yes and no. They will be connected to you, but their human consciousness’ cannot be in two planes at once like mine could.”

Alex feels her heartbeat pick up slightly at this not having realized this flaw in their plan.

“So how do we get a signal out?”

Brainy looks confused for a second before stating matter of factly “You don’t.”

J’onn is the one who asks the next logical question.

“But you can get one in right?”

Brainy seems to think for a second and then responds with some hesitation.

“If needed I should be able to briefly link into Supergirl’s consciousness through yours, but any sustained connection would be too dangerous.”

Alex’s heartbeat continues its rapid rhythm, the plan sounding even worse than before now, and she knows hers isn’t the only one when Kara looks from her to Lena.

“You don’t have to do this. Neither of you. The plan still works if I go in alone.”

Taking a deep breath, Alex looks at her sister then and tries to forget the last time she let her go after Reign alone, she tries to forget the sound of her own voice telling Kara to forget her humanity, tries to forget watching her fall from that roof.

“No it doesn’t.”

She looks between Kara and Lena, her voice stronger and her heartbeat steadier this time as she says it again.

As she thinks of Lena scared and alone having to watch as she lost a little more of Sam each day.

As she thinks about everything threatening to tear them all apart.

“No it doesn’t. We both tried fighting Reign alone and we both failed. We’re not going to fail again.”

\---- ---- ---- ----

Less than 24 hours ago none of this would have seemed real.

And Lena doesn’t know how she thought this would end.

She isn’t sure she ever thought about it at all.

She was just trying to save Sam.

She was just trying to make sure another kid didn’t grow up without her mother.

She let emotion outweigh reason and she hadn’t thought about what it would mean.

What would happen.

What would be left.

What the end would be …. good or bad.

But now it’s all she can think about.

Because she had known about Kara just like she had known about Sam; before she could admit it to herself.

And she had kept it a secret the same too.

But it never felt quite real. Not like it does now staring at the electrodes on Kara’s temples, checking the numbers one last time in her head, repeating Alex’s words over and over…we’re not going to fail again.

She takes a deep breath and feels Brainy place a small white sensor on her forehead, and she thinks she hears him ask if she’s ready. She thinks out of reflex she must yes because he doesn’t ask again but she can’t be sure because she doesn’t let her eyes leave Kara.

She needs to say something. Something that isn’t filled with anger.

“I’m sorry…”

Kara looks at her then, blue eyes not as bright as they should be and she doesn't want to offer her another lie.

“This is—it will be painful.”

And maybe she means more than the physical pain she knows Kara will feel.

Maybe she means what comes next.

What comes after this all.

Because she knows now there is no way of doing this without hurting each other.

That the truth will come out now.

And she knows then too that this was the end she hadn’t wanted to think of.

But as Kara turns her head away to look up at the ceiling again, taking a deep breath of her own and offering a small nod that signals she’s ready, Lena hears it.

“It’s okay.”

And for a second, she imagines the words as Kara's — Kara’s, not Supergirl’s.

She imagines telling her the real reason she didn't tell her about the Kryptonite was that it made her feel like her brother, that it made her feel like Kara had a reason not to trust her, a reason to lie to her.

_It's okay_

She imagines Kara telling her she was wrong.

_It's okay_

She imagines she believes it.

_It's okay_

Imagines it even as the world fades to black.

\---- ---- ---- ----

Lena’s heart beats too fast and too loud in Kara’s ears as she tries to keep still, tries to ignore the tightness gripping her chest as she looks up at the ceiling, eyes held on the blank space above her waiting to be lost in a world of darkness.

But Lena’s voice draws her back.

“I’m sorry…”

The words are quiet and unexpected, barely heard over the sound of Lena’s rapid pulse but Kara doesn’t miss them — can’t ignore them.

“This is—it will be painful.”

And looking into Lena’s eyes then she sees something of herself reflected back.

Because Kara can’t help but think about the scars this will leave them both with.

Because there’s so much that could still happen.

So much that could still go wrong.

So many ways for Lena to be hurt.

Kara had tried to spare her the weight of her scarred heart only to add to Lena’s own.

But she can’t take them back.

Because Lena deserves the truth, but she also deserves for her to be the hero she tries to be, the one that the world demands.

And she doesn’t know how to be both those things yet.

To be everything that Lena needs.

To make a human heart beat inside a Kryptonian chest.

But maybe after this is over, she can try.

She can tell Lena she doesn’t blame her for trying to save Sam, for doing the same thing she’s always done, for trying to protect the people she loves.

She can tell her it was never about trust.

She can make her understand that kryptonite is about more than pain, that it is a reminder a part of this world will always fear her, and that for a second she had let herself believe that maybe it meant Lena did too.

And she wants to take that back too.

But she can’t.

Not here.

Not like this.

Not until Sam is safe.

Not until Reign is gone.

She won’t risk Alex’s life.

She won’t risk Lena’s.

She won’t let herself be vulnerable when they need her to be strong.

But still a piece of her aches for forgiveness and so the words she offers are spoken like a promise but feel like a prayer.

“It’s okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Next chapter: Kara, Alex, and Lena enter Juru leading to a confrontation with Reign.
> 
> I wasn't sure about the first part between Alex and Lena as much as the rest, but I hope the tone was okay. I am trying to keep everyone in character (or at least what feels in character to me) as much as possible so let me know if any of it feels way of base so I can make changes.
> 
> Thoughts wanted...please inquire below :)


	6. Myths too real

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, yeah, so it, um, it's been a while huh? Life got a bit hectic for a while, but I finally had some time off and a chance to write. Please accept my apologies and this new chapter. And for those of you still here and still reading thank you!
> 
> Also a bit of a disclaimer, I am by no means a DC comic expert and some liberties were taken with Krypton's history and religion to fit the story.

Lena feels her chest constrict at the unwelcome intrusion of cold, stale air filling her lungs as she tries to catch her breath. 

“Hey, easy.”

A hand rests on her shoulder and she flinches out of reflex and disorientation, relaxing only at the sound of Alex’s voice. 

“You okay?”

Lena looks down at herself, a slight tremble in her hands but nothing more. 

“Yeah, you?”

The Agent nods and reaches toward her again, this time offering her hand and Lena allows herself to be helped to her feet as she looks for Kara.

“Supergirl?”

Alex steps slightly to the side allowing Lena to see Kara standing behind her. The blonde’s head is bowed, and her hands rest heavily on her knees as her back arches forcing air into her lungs. 

“Just, uh, just getting my bearings.”

The words are rushed as they make their way out between breaths that are a little too fast and a bit too shallow to be at all convincing, but she quickly forces herself to stand straighter, not willing to let herself look weak and Lena doesn’t miss the worried look that passes across Alex’s face, hadn’t missed the same sense of worry in her own voice. 

The three of them stand still, uneasy and quiet, each trying to grasp the reality of being in this place. 

In a way, the surreal landscape feels familiar. The unknown darkness like too many nightmares she has had before. 

The only difference was that this one was real. The only difference was that this one could kill her — could kill them all — and she doesn’t know what that makes her now. If she is not as selfless as she had hoped. If she is only reckless, stupid, naïve.

All things she had never thought she could be. 

But that was before. 

Before Worldkillers. 

Before Kryptonite.

She looks at Kara and hates how desperate she is to hear her tell her she is wrong. To believe in her like she always has. To tell her this was the right thing to do. 

Lena thinks about the trigger she had put in Kara’s hands last year. 

Thinks she understands now what it felt like to hold it. 

She sees Kara start to walk toward the edge of the fog, her feet steadier now but her eyes still darkened with a kind of fear Lena cannot place. She takes a step forward and really that is the only thing to do now, to move forward, to find Sam. She watches as Kara’s hand runs over the rough edges of one of the tree trunks, her fingers tracing something she can’t quite see. Kara stills, her shoulders falling slightly. Lena and Alex are both close enough to her than to hear the breathless whisper that leaves her lips. 

“Julia”

Lena looks at the words scratched violently into the tree and then to Alex, desperate for understanding. 

“Purity, the second World Killer, her name is Julia.”

Kara shakes her head and her hand falls away from the tree. 

“I should have known, but I didn’t think.”

She hears the quiet sadness in Kara's words and thinks of what Alex had said. How Kara had been the first one to understand that Worldkillers could be saved, that even before Sam maybe she was destined to find herself in this place.

Lena steps back from them then, missing the words of reassurance that she knows Alex will offer her sister, her eyes again wandering the desolate scape around them until they fall on another set of jagged lines. She steps closer, hands sweaty and shaking as they trace the outline of Ruby’s name, a reminder of the only thing that kept Sam whole, kept her fighting. She thinks of the haunted look in Sam's eyes every time she had brought her back from this darkness, the agony she must have felt every time she went back, and in a place unimaginable she has never felt a pain so real. 

She doesn’t know how long she stands there, how long before she registers Alex’s voice next to her and feels Kara beside her. 

“We have to keep moving.”

She looks at them, regards the grim determination in Kara’s eyes and the stick clutched in Alex’s hands and wonders if that could possibly be enough to protect them, wonders what weapon she herself has to yield. 

\---- ---- ---- ----

Walking through the thick white fog that tangles around their feet, Kara shuts her eyes and imagines her father’s voice reading from the book of Rao — stories of light and warmth and promise. She had always known there was darkness in the scriptures too. Stories of gods who were no longer worshiped, cast aside and into places such as this and left to rule over the lost and haunted. But it was one thing to hear stories and another to see it, to feel the weight of the souls trapped here. 

She hears her voice break the silence that had settled between them. 

“It was only ever a myth.”

A second passes before Alex looks at her. 

“What was?”

“Juru. The book of Rao only spoke of it as a myth, a lost place for the lost gods. But then I started to have those dreams. And it all felt so real. I realized it wasn’t just a myth anymore. I should have believed it sooner.”

Kara steals a glance at Lena and thinks this is a piece of the truth she can give to her, a part of herself.

“Yuda was the goddess of the moons, and she and Rao once sat beside each other, were worshiped together as true gods, but when one of Krypton’s moons was destroyed, Yuda was forgotten. The Daughters of Juru saw her as a martyr for the lost gods, they created this place for her in darkness, free from the light of Rao.”

Lena looks back at her, their eyes meeting briefly. 

“So the eclipse really isn’t just an eclipse.”

She shakes her head, her steps pausing slightly to catch her breath as the others slow their pace. 

“The Kryptonian witches are using it to draw power from the Earth, to weaken it.”

Lena offers her a hand as they make their way over a fallen tree. 

“And you.”

And Kara wants to deny it, knows that trying to hide it is useless at this point, but before she can say anything, the words are stolen from her by the cold shiver of the air around them and the haunting trill of something unseen. Turning sharply, she sees a light illuminate the darkness as a cloaked figure appears, and she has just enough time to push Lena toward Alex. The cold around her is unbearable, and the screams that echo in her ears inescapable as a rush of darkness hits her square in the chest knocking her onto her back. A sharp pain in her head barely registers as her hands scramble for purchase on the ground and she tries to get up. 

She manages to get to her knees just as Alex steps in front of her, her makeshift spear thrown at the figure in front of them and she watches the black wisps of smoke and ether fall to the ground as it passes through the demon’s chest. Then as quickly as it had come, the cold and screams are gone, replaced by nothing but the sound of her own pounding heartbeat in her ears.

“Supergirl. Supergirl!”

Kara’s eyes snap open, and she scrambles to her feet, adrenaline and fear masking the panic that lies deeper inside her as her hands come up in front of her. It’s only when she sees Alex and Lena in front of her that she allows her sister’s gentle touch to lower her arms back to her side. 

“Are you all right?”

“Y-Yeah”

Alex looks at her skeptically but doesn’t press her further, only giving her arm a subtle, reassuring squeeze, before stepping away to retrieve her weapon.

“What was that thing?” 

Lena’s voice is anxious, and Kara tries to will her own to be steady. 

“A Kryptonian demon.”

“What do they want?”

Kara pauses, trying not to tell Lena that they’re here for the same reason they are...for Sam. 

“They…they guard the souls here.”

Leana seems to understand though nonetheless and doesn’t ask anything else, only lets her hands rub up and down her arms in a nervous gesture she is all too familiar with. Kara shifts awkwardly, wanting only to reach out and take Lena’s hand but then Alex’s voice breaks the tension between them. 

“I think I know what it was trying to stop us from finding then.” 

Kara turns to look at her sister, sees the haunted look on her face as she kneels over something. Stepping toward her, she sees a figure silhouetted in the fog, too small to be Sam she realizes quickly, but that only eases some of the fear in her chest. She feels Lena moving beside her, knows she had the same fear and in a quiet voice tries to reassure her. 

“It isn’t Sam”

And it isn’t. She is close enough to prove it to herself now. But she knows how easily it could have been. How easily the body in front of them could have been Sam’s instead of Grace’s. 

Kara shakes her head, trying to keep the image from gaining purchase in her mind, but an aching pain protests the movement and she has to keep herself from wincing as she touches the spot where her head had hit the ground, her fingers coming away wet with blood that she quickly wipes away onto her suit. And she maybe only then realizes too how easily it could soon be her own, but more than that it makes her realize she might finally know how to stop Reign. 

\---- ---- ---- ---- 

Alex watches Lena as she sits alone, back leaning against a rock wall, her head buried in her arms as they grip around her knees. 

They didn’t have time to stop, but they had all needed to. 

Lena hadn’t said anything since they found Grace. None of them had. At that moment the silence had contained everything that needed to be said. 

She thinks of Lena alone and looks at Kara. Hands opening and closing to hide the tremors she thinks she doesn’t notice. Hands that are aching to give comfort. Hands that are preparing to fight. 

“I know you’re planning something stupid.”

Alex doesn’t even look at Kara when she says it, she already knows what she’ll say, she doesn’t need to see her sister’s face to know it’s a lie. 

“I’m not.”

“You are. You’re planning something stupid enough to get you killed.”

And then she waits for another lie, for Kara to deny whatever decision she has already made. Except Kara doesn’t lie. 

“I can stop Reign. Here. Now.”

Alex does look at Kara then. And the look in her eyes scares her more than anything she’s seen in this place because it’s the same thing she saw right before she watched Kara fall from the sky. 

“Kara.” 

“Grace is dead.”

“Kara!”

“Grace is dead, but Pestilence isn’t! This whole time we thought killing Reign would mean killing Sam, but it doesn’t. If a soul dies here, it can’t escape. It’s why I couldn’t get through to Pestilence the way I could with Julia or the way Lena could with Sam. Grace was already dead. If Reign dies here, then Sam’s soul would be the only one left.”

And now the hardness in her sister’s eyes is replaced with a kind of desperate pleading hopefulness, and she can’t believe she’s even considering that she might be right. 

“Kara, if you're wrong…”

“It’s still the same Alex. We find Sam, we get her to overcome Reign’s hold, but instead of Sam helping us find where Reign is, I fight her here where she’s vulnerable.”

“And how do you know she can die here?”

And Kara goes quiet at that, but Alex already knows the answer, her eyes dropping to the darkened spot on Kara’s sleeve.

“Because she’s not the only one that could die here right?”

She grabs the blood-stained section of Kara’s suit. 

“Not the only one that’s vulnerable?”

“Alex.”

“No! We have a plan, Kara. A plan we all agreed on.”

But Alex watches the hardness return to Kara’s eyes. 

“We only agreed to save Sam.”

And the silence returns then too only to be broken by the sound of a distant tortured voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up .... Finding Sam, and a showdown with Reign. 
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are welcome and appreciated even if I might not deserve them for making you guys wait so long for an update. 
> 
> Also for those of you who might be interested, as of now, Lazarus is still happening but I wanted to finish this first.


	7. Absolution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks!

Lena knows it’s Sam. Knows it as soon as the sound reaches her. Because for three weeks she has listened to her nightmares. Has heard them over and over in her head until they were as familiar as her own. And so, she doesn’t wait for Alex and Kara, doesn’t even look back to see if they are following her. She just runs. And she knows it’s a reckless thing to do, but she doesn’t care, not with Sam this close, not after everything had started to feel so hopeless. 

She follows the sound of Sam’s voice as it echoes in the hollow darkness, follows it until she can hear the words that repeat like a broken plea for absolution. 

“I killed them. I killed them. I killed them. I killed them.”

But when she finally finds herself in front of Sam’s trembling frame her hands hesitate as they reach out; restrained out of the fear that it will only add to her torment. But eventually, the need to feel that Sam is really there, really in front of her wins out, and she kneels in front of her, leaning forward until their foreheads touch as she tries to ease Sam out of her tortured thoughts. 

“I killed them. I killed them.”

The rush of footsteps sounds behind her and Lena turns to see Alex, sees the same relief and fear she was feeling mirrored back. She thinks she can hear Kara too, sees where she stands somewhere behind Alex, her back silhouetted by the outline of her cape. 

Alex pauses only for a second before dropping next to them. Her hand moving to Sam’s shoulder, her voice steady. 

“Sam look at me okay. You have to look at me. We’re right here with you.” 

Lena’s hands move to cover Sam’s, the rock she had used to etch her daughter’s name into her memory still held tightly there in tired desperation. 

She hears her own voice waver. 

“It’s okay Sam, we’re going to get you home. We are going to get you back to Ruby.”

At the mention of her daughter’s name Sam’s eyes focus on Lena’s. 

“R-ruby?”

She nods, and this time her voice breaks, realizing that they are not too late, that a part of Sam is still there with them. 

“Yeah. Ruby. She’s waiting for you.”

Silent tears trail down Sam’s face, and for a moment Lena thinks she can see relief in the other woman’s eyes. 

“Lena? Alex?”

But then it’s all too quickly replaced again by fear as she pushes herself further into the rough bark of the tree, pulls her hands away to cover her ears.

“No. No. No. I’m sorry. No. I’m sorry. I-I killed you. I’m sorry.”

She cannot find the words to answer. 

Hears instead as Kara does. Her voice firm and understanding in a way that neither Alex's or Lena's could have been. 

“You didn’t kill anyone. Reign killed them. It wasn’t you. You are not her.”

Lena grabs onto Sam’s shoulders then, her grip matching the determination of Kara’s words. 

“You are Sam Arias. You're the strongest person I know. And you’re not going to give up now. Ruby needs you. She needs you to fight back.”

Her hope falters again as Sam shakes her head back and forth. 

“I-I can’t. They won’t let me go.”

Kara's voice is firmer still but now Lena can hear the pain that it is trying so desperately to hide. 

“Whatever you’re seeing. Whatever you’re feeling it isn’t real Sam. But we are. Ruby is. And I can’t promise there won’t be pain. And I can’t promise you that everything will be okay.”

Lena looks at Kara, silently pleading for her words to be enough; silently listening to the promise she makes.

“But I will make sure you never have to come back to this place. I will make sure Reign never hurts anyone again. But you have to do this first. You have to tell us where she is.”

She watches as Sam closes her eyes. 

Feels the grip on her hand tighten and loosen. 

Waits breathless as the broken woman tries to confront the darkness inside of her. 

But then all at once, Lena finds the darkness staring back. 

\---- ---- ---- ---- 

Lena is running in the direction of Sam’s voice before she can do anything to stop her and it's Alex who has to pull her to her feet so that they follow her fast enough that they don’t lose sight of her. 

The ground is uneven beneath her feet as she trails blindly after her sister, a reserved hope in each step that she takes as Sam’s voice becomes clearer but no less pained. 

And she had been so focused on not falling behind that she almost runs into the back of Alex when her sister abruptly stops. 

It’s then that Kara sees Sam for the first time, huddled among the fallen rocks and decaying trees with Lena in front of her, hands unsure as she tries to find a way through to their friend. Alex steps toward them wordlessly, but Kara stays back; her eyes scanning the hazy distance, her hands testing the strength that remains in them trying to prepare for the fight that is inevitable now. She sees Julia then too. Her eyes fixed somewhere beyond everything that is around them, unaware of it all. Kara kneels in front of her, knowing she is not really there with them, but her hands still reach out, wordlessly taking one of Julia’s, and the steady pulse she feels is enough to let her hold onto what little hope she still has. What little hope remains that she will be able to save her too. 

Kara stands again, steadier somehow now, stronger. 

She hears Sam’s tortured refrain sounding like the echo of her own memories. Her own nightmares. 

“No. No. No. I’m sorry. No. I’m sorry. I-I killed you. I’m sorry.”

She closes her eyes, reminds herself these are not her demons here. But still, she finds something of herself in Sam’s words and in the pain and guilt they hold. 

“You didn’t kill anyone. Reign killed them. It wasn’t you. You are not her.”

She is surprised at the sound of her own voice. Surprised at how determined it sounds in spite of how terrified she feels. 

She watches as Lena's hands grip tightly onto Sam’s shoulders. Listens as she tries again to bring her back to them. But Kara knows she is too scared. Feels too alone. That everything seems too hopeless. Because she has felt every one of those things before. 

She looks at Alex and remembers every word she ever said to her to make her feel like she would survive whatever war was raging in her head, whatever nightmare she woke up from. 

“Whatever you’re seeing. Whatever you’re feeling it isn’t real Sam. But we are. Ruby is. And I can’t promise there won’t be pain. And I can’t promise you that everything will be okay.”

She looks at Lena and sees the trust she still has in her. Lets it give her the strength she needs to makes a promise she is willing to die to keep. 

“But I will make sure you never have to come back to this place. I will make sure Reign never hurts anyone again. But you have to do this first. You have to tell us where she is.”

Sam's eyes shut tight, her voice more distant. 

Time slows and Kara feels the cold return. 

She knows what’s coming, but there is no way to stop it. 

Sees her hand reach out to pull Lena away, but it’s too slow. 

Hears her voice call out, but it’s too late. 

\---- ---- ---- ---- 

Alex didn’t realize why Kara had reached for Lena so suddenly, didn’t understand her panicked warning, didn’t realize that Sam was gone until Reign’s hand was already wrapped around Lena’s throat. 

She steps forward, out of instinct, but Kara moves in front of her first. Shoulders squared to the Worldkiller, hands clenched into fists, and if it weren’t for the slight waver in her stance, she would have forgotten she was powerless in this place. 

“Let her go!”

Alex watches Reign turn toward them. Her words taunting Kara. 

“I saw her you know. I saw her grow mournful, and angry, and desperate.”

She looks into Reign’s eyes and sees nothing left of Sam. 

“I saw her lose faith in you just like the rest of them will now.”

Nothing left but hate.

Kara steps towards Reign.

"This isn't about her. This is about you and me.

Stops only when the hand around Lena’s throat tightens again. 

“You are nothing. You've always been nothing. You cannot protect your world from what is coming. And her."

Reign looks back at Lena. 

"Her death will just be the start."

“No!”

And Alex tries to hold Kara back, tries to stop her, but her adrenaline and fear make her stronger, faster, and Alex can only watch as Kara’s body collides with Reign’s. 

Lena falls roughly to the ground, struggling to find her breath, and Alex reaches for her, grabs hold of her jacket, pulling her back until suddenly the weight is gone from her hands. Until suddenly Lena is gone. And she barely has time to think about how any of it is possible; that maybe none of this is really happening, when all at once everything else disappears too. 

\---- ---- ---- ---- 

Lena’s eyes snap open and the world comes into focus with bright lights and disjointed sounds. 

A deep breath rushes to escape her lungs around the fading tightness of Reign’s hands around her throat. 

A harsh beeping fills her ears as she watches Alex stumble off her chair and toward Kara’s side. 

Lena’s own feet slowly find their purchase on the ground as she tries to make sense of the chaos around her. 

“How could you leave her alone in there!” Alex is grabbing the front of Brainy’s suit as he tries to stutter out a response.

“Her-her vitals w-were dropping. She couldn’t sustain all of you there any longer.”

“Then pull her out!” Alex shouted again looking between Brainy and J’ohnn. 

“I’m trying, she’s – she’s not letting me.”

Alex takes a step back before her hands find the closest thing to her and Lena startles at the clash of metal as one of the tables crashes to the floor. 

“Goddammit Kara!”

And just like that all the lies and all the secrets between her and Kara were made meaningless in Alex’s anger. 

No one moves. No one looks at her. She knows none of them realize what Alex has just done. 

And she can’t help but think that it should have mattered more. That finally knowing for sure who Kara is should make her feel something other than numb. 

But that’s all she feels. 

Not angry or hurt or scared. 

Just numb. 

She stands back, watching Alex pace back and forth, hands running through her hair, over her face, only stopping when J’ohnn finally grabs her shoulders. 

“Alex.”

But she just shakes her head and steps back from his hold, the tears barely contained in her eyes. 

“You have a location?”

It’s Brainy that answers.

“Yes, however….”

But Alex only looks at J’ohnn, and Lena can see the silent conversation happening between them. Can only imagine all that's left unsaid. 

“You have a location?”

He nods. 

“Yes.”

And she watches as Alex’s anger is replaced by a sense of purpose. 

“We have to go, there isn’t much time, and Sam is alone with the other Worldkillers.”

J’onn and the others look worriedly between each other but say nothing, each silent in their tasks as they get ready to leave.

Lena wants to follow, tries to, but Winn stops her, silently shaking his head and she thinks that maybe he is who Kara tasked with making sure she didn’t do exactly what she had just been planning on, because even now, even still, a part of her never stopped trusting that Kara would protect her. 

But she can’t just do nothing. Not when everyone else is risking everything. 

“Alex?”

The agent stops just in front of the door, looking back over her shoulder at Lena. 

“I need you to find a way to bring her back."

And it’s then that Lena realizes Alex isn’t talking about Sam. 

"When this is over I won’t just leave her in that place.”

It’s then she understands what Kara’s promise to Sam really was.

Understands what it will take for her to keep it. 

Fears what will happen it she can't. 

Knows what it will cost her if she can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming Up: Kara and Alex fight two different battles. Lena wars with herself. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are very welcome and very, very appreciated!


	8. Hope and Promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sleep, what sleep?
> 
> As always....a heartfelt thanks to all for reading! Your comments, kudos, and feedback are always welcome and very much appreciated.

Alex had always been prepared to die first. 

It was something she had first learned when she was too young, too full of the grief for her father to really understand.

She thinks maybe they were both too full of grief to understand. 

But eventually, she understands her Mother's careful words. 

Knows that one day, once again, Kara would have to survive losing her family. 

But it wasn't until Kara saved her. 

Until she chose to protect the world that had become her home. 

Until Alex had to listen to her sister say goodbye the first time, that she realized that Kara had always been prepared to die first too. 

\---- ---- ---- ----

When they get there, Sam is on her knees, Pestilence standing over her as she promises to end her life and set Reign free, 

Alex is fast, but J'onn's faster as he flies toward them, tackling the Worldkiller so that Alex can get Sam somewhere safer. 

When Alex reaches her, she recognizes with haunting familiarity, the fear in her eyes. 

"Alex?"

Sam's voice is questioning, and she imagines that this all still feels like a nightmare to her. 

"I'm going to get you home."

And she realizes it's the second time she made that same promise, but it’s the first time she really believed it was possible. Because behind the fear she also sees something else. A kind of determination that wasn't there before. And so she lets herself believe that they can really do this. That they can bring her home. That they can give Ruby her mother back. 

"But I need you to stay back. I need you to keep yourself safe. No matter what happens."

And Sam looks like she wants to protest, wants to ask something else, but they don't have time and so Alex pulls her with her, shielding her as they make their way behind one of the cave walls. She grabs onto Sam's shoulders once she's sure they're covered. Looks into her eyes once more. 

"No matter what happens, okay?"

Alex knows that whatever is going to happen is going to be violent and Sam has already seen too much violence, felt too much pain, and she doesn't deserve to know anymore. 

Sam nods her head and squeezes one of Alex's hands.

"R-Ruby"

She gives her a gentle smile. 

"She's safe, I promise. "

Sam nods again and lets go of her hand. A silent thanks going left unsaid as she runs back to the others. 

Once she approaches the end of the wall, Alex presses a hand to her ear. 

"Winn we've got Sam; do you think Brainy can get the ship close enough to...."

But she doesn't finish the question as a sonic wave knocks her off her feet. She recovers quickly, pulling herself up and taking cover behind an outcropping as she tries her comm's again.

"Winn? Winn? 

But there is only static. 

"Fuck"

J'onn lands next to her along with Mon-el and Imra. 

"We have to split them up. I can handle Pestilence if you and Imra take Purity."

He gestures to Mon-el. 

"We can hold her off, but how do we end this without letting them get away again?"

Alex looks between them. 

"Reign told Kara once that only one of equal strength could defeat her. We have to figure out a way for them to stop each other."

It's Mon-el that says what she knows they're all thinking. 

"If that's true, how will Kara be able to stop Reign if both the other Worldkiller's are already gone."

Alex takes a deep breath. She had already accepted that there was nothing she could do to stop Kara, but it still hurt to say it. To admit that she was helpless to protect her sister from this. 

"Kara doesn't have her powers in Juru but neither will Reign."

\---- ---- ---- ---- 

Kara could feel her body trying to be pulled back. 

She could feel it trying to give in. 

But she fought against it, ignored Brainy’s voice and the instinct to survive. 

This was what had to happen. 

This was the only way. 

She took a deep breath just as Reign’s hold on her tightened. They were both powerless but Kara was still weaker. 

The Worldkiller’s knee pressed into her back forcing her upright before she leaned in towards her; breath heavy and voice clear. 

“You can’t even be a Martyr now. You will die alone, and it will mean nothing. The world you have sworn yourself to will die without witness.”

Her hand wrapped around and underneath Kara's chin, jerking her head back. 

“Just like Krypton.”

She grit her teeth, and threw her head backward, a sickening crack sounding as she managed to knock Reign onto her back. 

With her ears ringing, Kara pushed herself off the ground, turning as quickly as she could so that she was once again face to face with the disgraced Kryptonian. 

Reign lunged at her without pause, but she managed to pivot away, using the momentum to push her to the side and onto her back once more. 

She was stronger, but Kara hoped she could be smarter. 

Reign stood again, walking slowly this time toward her, but she held her ground. 

“You still think you are enough, don’t you?”

Through the fog, Kara caught a glimpse of something in her hand. 

“But you are no god Kara Zor-el. Or have you forgotten.”

Reign raised her hand, a broken piece of rock coming out of the darkness and toward Kara. 

She crossed her arms in front of her, the sharp edges slicing through the flesh of her forearm as she ducked under the attack and grabbed the Worldkiller’s wrist, pulling it down harshly until the makeshift weapon clattered to the ground. 

Kara reached for it, but couldn't grab it as Reign’s boot collided with the side of her head. She felt herself slam into the hard ground; her vision blurring and the metallic taste of her own blood filling her mouth. She rolled onto her side, knees pulled up toward her chest and hands wrapped around her head as she tried to protect herself. But through the pain and panic she somehow managed to find the fallen rock, and this time it was Reign who stumbled back, blood dripping from a cut on her eyebrow. 

" And you are no devil. Or have you forgotten"

Kara pushed herself onto one knee and then finally into standing, making it to her feet before the Worldkiller could regain her own footing. 

She tried to remember everything Alex and Maggie had taught her as she dropped her shoulder and grabbed Reign around the waist sending them both back to the ground. She had a better chance like this, better at least than with them both on their feet where Reign was still stronger, faster. She tried to keep her close as she struck out, spinning her so that she could lock her legs around her waist from behind while her forearm tightened around Reign’s neck. 

Kara could feel the warmth of the Worldkiller’s blood as it ran down her face and onto to her arm. 

Could see where it met her own. 

Thought how it was Kryptonian blood that ran through both of their veins. 

Thought what it was that another of the failures of Krypton might cost her this time. 

Kara closed her eyes. 

Felt the body against hers struggle. 

Heard the gasps of air. 

And among the demons of a lost god she prayed to the god of a dead world. 

She asked for Rao’s forgiveness. 

She asked it of herself too. 

But she already knew she would accept this burden one day. 

Knew it the day she almost lost Alex. 

Knew it the day she realized she loved Lena. 

Knew it when she promised Sam she would save her. 

And it was different than the other burdens she bore, but it would haunt her the same. Or else kill her before it could. 

Kara could feel Reign’s hands pulling on her arms, her muscles burning and hands going numb from the effort to hold her. 

And she tried. 

Rao, she tried to end it. 

But in one last desperate attempt, Reign drove her elbow into Kara’s side with enough force that she could feel the bones splinter as they broke. 

And for a second, she couldn’t breathe. 

For a second, she felt her strength fail her. 

And it was only a second. 

The Worldkiller broke free sending Kara onto her back. 

But that was all it took. 

Reign leaned down, grabbing the front of Kara’s suit and dragging her up to her feet. 

Ignoring the pain in her chest, Kara grabbed onto the Worldkiller’s forearms and turned her body with as much strength as she could manage down and to the side, forcing her to lose her balance. But instead of letting go, Reign held on, pulling Kara with her as she turned them around. She felt her feet give out from under her. Felt herself falling forward as they both stumbled backward, her hands pushing against Reign until they collided with something hard. 

Kara closed her eyes as the unexpected force stole the remaining breath from her aching lungs.

But other than the pain, everything else had seemed to stop.

She slowly brought her head up, looking into the red of Reign’s eyes and then down to the red stain spreading over the emblem on her chest. 

It looks so wrong. 

Seems so out of place that it doesn’t feel real. 

And it is only then that she feels the weight of the silence. 

Only then that she feels both of their hands fall away. 

\----- ----- ----- ------ 

This morning Lena had wanted to go back to yesterday and forget every word they both had said. 

She’d wanted to go back to a month ago and make a different decision to start from. 

She’d wanted to go back far enough to never fall in love with Kara. 

Back far enough that it didn’t matter that she lied because they were nothing to each other. 

Far enough she could convince herself then that there was never a part of her that ever desired to be loved at all. 

But it would not have been far enough to forget everything she’s lost or that she had never learned to trust or love without fear. 

Lena listens to the sound of alarms and static, and she wonders where she would be standing instead if she could have gone back far enough. Likes to think it isn’t in a place where Kara might be dying, or where Sam might be gone. 

But as Winn’s frantic attempts to reach Alex go unanswered, and the numbers on the monitor in front of her continue to fall she realizes that it is not about going back into her past. Realizes that she and Kara have been punishing each other for lives neither of them had known they would live; for the weight that others have put on their shoulders but asked them to carry. 

This morning she had wanted to go back to yesterday, but now she has to hope there is a way to make it to tomorrow...for all of them.

So she ignores the noises that speak of the chaos around her. 

She coaxes Winn away from the useless communication board. 

And together, they will find a way to turn her hope into a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is there such a tag as Slow Burn Happiness? I know it's now 8 chapters in a row without even the hint of a smile from anyone but hang in there.
> 
> Coming up: Finding a way back to themselves and each other.


	9. No matter what

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fight to save each other continues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always thanks for reading and for all of your comments and kudos and feedback. 
> 
> A small word of warning that some of the more sci-fi elements might be a bit of a stretch, but I tried to make them feel as realistic as I could. Still I will be the first to admit that I have no actual working knowledge of how interdimensional travel or entering into someon's conciousness is supposed to work.

There is a second just before Reign’s hands fall from her arms that Kara is reminded of that night on the roof. A second when the pain she can no longer ignore echoes of a memory she can never forget. She remembers the way the sound had faded from the world; the way blood had filled her vision. She remembers the look in Reign's eyes. How they had been so full of hate and anger and purpose. How even then, even before Sam, she had wanted to believe there was something behind that darkness; that there was love and light and something worth saving — someone worth saving. 

And she had been right. But now she has to believe again. Believe that she was right again. That she has kept her promise to Sam. 

Because there is nothing left in Reign’s eyes now. 

Nothing left of darkness or light; nothing left to save or destroy. 

Because the blood that spreads across her chest is not her own. 

She looks at the splintered end of the tree branch that rests inches from her own heart. Feels where the end of another pierces her side. 

The strength of Reign’s hold is no longer keeping her in place, but they are still connected by the cruelty of fate. 

Her shaking hands try to grip around the rough edges, try to break it, but her fingers are too cold; too numb. So she closes her eyes and pushes herself away, swallows the bile that rises in her throat as she staggers back, one step, then two until she falls to her knees; exhausted, breathless. 

Blood seeps between her fingers and she can’t help but stare at where the Worldkiller’s body is still propped against the tree. Held up only by the jagged pieces of wood that had done what her hands could not. 

She tries to wipe Reign’s blood from her own chest like it might erase the doubt that is left by what she’s just done. Because Reign is dead, and she can only hope that Sam is alive, only hope that Alex won’t blame herself, only hope that Lena will forgive her when she learns the truth. 

Kara feels herself fall to the side, unable to stop the world from tilting around her any longer. 

She knows she isn’t strong enough now, that her mind had lost its hold, that there was no way to bring herself back from this place. 

And she tries not to cry; tries to hold onto something good, because she had promised herself she wouldn’t die afraid. 

But as she lies on her back and stares into a sky void of stars she finds herself wishing for a different sky, for even a single star. 

Because she won’t let herself die afraid, but she doesn’t want to have to die alone. 

\---- ---- ---- ----

They all stand, backs to each other as they wait for the next attack. Purity moves first, but Imra is quicker, shielding them as she redirects the energy back at the Worldkillers. 

Pestilence’s yellow eyes fill with anger. 

“Are you so pitiful that you would sacrifice yourselves for doomed world?” 

J’onn and Mon-el fly toward them, countering the attack. 

Alex checks her gun as she watches J’onn grab onto Pestilence, his arms tightening around the Worldkiller with every bit of strength she knows he has as Mon-el tries to avoid her errant attacks. 

They only have one chance. 

She waits as Purity turns toward her, waits until her body draws back, waits until the last second, and then she pulls the trigger just as Imra drops the shield. A flash of light and noise erupts as the waves of energy meet between them sending the three of them sprawling to the ground. Alex feels her body slam into something hard and it forces the air out of her lungs. She rolls onto her side and tries to stand but only makes it halfway before she falls back to her knees. 

Purity steps toward her and this time Alex is helpless. Her gun too far to reach. 

Purity smirks at her. “Do you still think you are smarter than me, stronger than me?”

But just as she lets out another blast J’onn phases in front of her, Pestilence still held tight in his arms. 

And Alex sees the second the look in both of their eyes changes. Knows that they’ve realized too late what was happening. 

She watches as the momentum of Pestilence’s hand causes it to pierce Purity’s chest just as the force of the sonic wave hits her. J’onn manages to phase away just in time. But the two Worldkillers fall together to the ground, still bound to each other by Pestilence’s final blow. 

Alex makes it back to her feet and Imra helps to keep her steady as J’onn and Mon-el move cautiously forward. 

But even from here she can see the blood that pools between them. Can see the stillness of their chests. 

She bends forward, hands bracing themselves against her knees as she lets out a shuddering sigh of relief. But then out of the corner of her eye she sees Sam and she moves toward her as quickly as she can manage trying to shield her from the image in front of them. 

“Sam you don’t have to see this.”

But she pushes past her and stumbles forward on shaking legs. Alex follows after her. Her hand grabbing Sam’s to stop her again, to turn her back around so that they are facing each other. 

She can see the tears on Sam’s face. Doesn’t know if they are there out of fear, or anger, or relief. 

“They’re gone now.”

Sam tries to turn around again, but Alex’s grip tightens around her hand keeping her there. 

“W-where is she?”

And at first Alex doesn’t know who Sam is talking about, but she finds the answer when she recognizes the fear still in the other woman’s eyes. 

“She isn’t here. As long as you’re here with us then she can’t be.”

Sam shakes her head back and forth. 

“I don’t want to go back, please don’t make me go back.”

And Alex wants to tell her that it’s over. She wants to tell her that she never has to go back. But she knows as much as anyone how quickly promises can be broken. So she doesn’t say anything. Just grabs Sam and pulls her into her arms letting the warmth and strength of them quiet the fears words cannot. Because the truth is Alex doesn’t know if it’s over. She doesn’t know if Kara stopped Reign. Doesn’t know if Lena found a way to bring her back. And there is a moment as she looks over Sam’s shoulder to where J’onn stands with Mon-el; to where the lifeless bodies of the Worldkiller’s lie, that she realizes she doesn’t feel ready to find out the answer. 

\---- ---- ---- ---- 

They pull together everything that they can and soon circuits and wires lay tangled together mimicking the chaos that surrounds them. 

The alarms haven’t stopped, the red lines still run erratically across the screen. But Lena can’t help but think that as bad as it seems; as much as it hurts to have to listen to Kara’s heartbeat fading that the silence would be so much worse, because at least the sounds all mean that Kara is still alive, still fighting. 

Lena looks up at Brainy who is still trying to reach Kara on his own. 

“Anything?”

“Her brain waves indicate that she is no longer actively rejecting my attempts.”

Lena clings to whatever hope there is in what Brainy is saying. 

“So we can bring her out?”

But the hope is nothing more than fleeting as she sees him shake his head. 

“I’m afraid Supergirl’s body is in too much distress. She is no longer resisting, but that is because her mind isn’t strong enough. Trying to bridge our collective consciousnesses would likely kill her.” 

She feels the anger that builds inside her. 

Anger at herself that can't do what Alex asked of her. 

Anger at Kara for trapping herself in that place. 

Anger at a world that was trying to take someone else from her. 

Lena’s fist slams against the table, startling Winn and sending several parts scattering onto the floor. 

“So will doing nothing!”

She closes her eyes and tries to steady her breathing. Know that losing control now will do nothing to help Kara. 

“Hey.”

She looks down when she feels Winn’s hand on her forearm.

“The solution is here. We just have to find it. We’ve always brought her back. We will this time too.”

Lena grabs Winn’s hand, overcome with a sudden realization. 

“What do mean always.”

Winn opens his mouth ready to answer and Lena waits, her mind shifting again between anger and hope, but Winn doesn’t say what he was going too. Instead he drops what had been in his hands and rushes over to another bin. She watches as he mutters to himself clearly looking for something specific. His hand pauses on something and then he pulls it free from the mess of other parts before running back over to thrust what looks like a crude looking VR visor into her hands as he picks up another small circular device from the table. 

“That” he says pointing at the visor. “Lord designed that so Alex could project herself into Ka-uh-Supergirl’s consciousness. But it, it only creates a virtual simulation. We wouldn’t be able to use it to bring her out of Juru.” 

He looks at Lena making sure what he is saying makes any sense. 

“But this” he holds up the device in his hand “this can physically transport someone across dimensions. So….”

Lena takes the device from him finishing his thought. 

“So if we can use the technology from those and combine them with the system I was using with Sam...”

Winn nods enthusiastically and continues again where she left off. 

“We should be able to use them to re-enter Juru and then physically re-establish the connection between Supergirl’s body and her consciousness.”

\---- ---- ---- ----- 

Alex holds onto Sam, lets her hand rub gently up and down her back. And it’s a gesture so familiar, one that reminds her so much of Kara, that for a second, she lets herself find comfort in it too. 

But the silence that had settled around them suddenly gives way to the sound of static and then to that of Brainy’s voice in her ear. She looks to the others wanting to know if they are hearing the same thing over their comms. His words are frantic and jumbled and Alex isn’t sure if it’s because they are damaged or because things on the ship have gotten that much worse. 

J’onn looks at her; a sadness in his eyes barely contained like he knows something she doesn’t. Like he has already accepted the possibility of something that she isn’t ready to. 

But she doesn’t have a choice for much longer. 

Because as soon as she sees her sister there is no escaping what is happening. 

No hiding the fact that they are all watching Kara die. 

She looks at Lena, watches her eyes fall on Sam, sees the deep feeling of relief that overcomes her, and Alex knows that Lena wants to hold her, wants to make sure Sam is really there, but still she isn’t surprised when she steps toward her instead. Because for all that Kara and Lena have held back — kept hidden from themselves — anyone could see how much they loved each other. It was the reason Alex had trusted her to do what she couldn’t. 

“We found a way. I-Winn and I we managed to make a device. I can’t be sure” She takes a deep breath. “I can’t be sure but Brainy ran the calculations and he thinks they’re good enough.”

Alex looks down at the helmet in Lena’s hands, recognizes pieces of it from Lord’s design but can tell that there’s something else attached to it, something that looks like Cisco’s extrapolator. 

She takes it. Holding it carefully in her hands as if she were afraid it might break; that she might lose her chance to save Kara. She looks at her sister, watches the rapid rise and fall of her chest and the way her hands open and close as her back arches off of the table like she was physically trying to hold on. They couldn’t know if Kara had been right, but there was no time to make sure and it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered to her now was that Kara was still alive. And if Reign was too then they would fight her together. 

Alex moves quickly over to the chair next to Kara and places the helmet over her head. 

Lena and Winn are on one side, and Brainy is on the other, closest to Kara

Lena gives her another smaller device. 

“We can control your device from here, but once you’re there you’ll have to be the one to send her back. We already reversed the configuration so all you have to do is connect the electrodes and activate them.”

She turns her head toward her sister, her hand reaching out to hold onto Kara’s. 

No matter what happened she would bring her home. 

No matter what happened she wouldn’t let her be alone. 

But they still had a chance.

Alex looks at Lena, her green eyes filled with a pain that matches her own. 

All of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think. I always love to read the comments you guys leave, even if I can't always get around to replying to them. 
> 
> Coming up....The team works together to save Kara and she and Lena will have to finally face their own truths as well as each others.


	10. Lost and Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are getting closer to the end now, probably only one more chapter to go. Thanks to everyone for reading and all the support you’ve given to this story even when I've gotten stuck.

The first time Alex sees Kara scared she is nothing more than a thirteen-year-old girl; alone, abandoned, lost in a new world.

She thinks about that moment again now.

How she wishes she could go back and hold Kara that first night, through those first memories and those first nightmares. But still another part of her thinks that maybe they are so close because first they knew what it was to be so far apart from each other.

Because Alex knows the pain of Kara’s nightmares and of being unable to stop them.

Because Kara knows the strength of Alex’s grief when Jeremiah died and of not being able to ease it.

And because the pain we feel for someone else is a different kind of pain than we feel in ourselves, but still we understand it in the same way. We understand it in a way that makes it as real as our own. And we come to  
know in that kind of understanding things that we never could in any other way, things we couldn’t know in ourselves.

The first time Alex sees Kara scared she is nothing more than a thirteen-year-old girl; alone, abandoned, lost in a new world.

It was a pain she did not know but would come to understand.

And when Alex sees Kara now — thinking she is alone again, thinking she is abandoned again — asking for the forgiveness of ghosts in the whispered words of a lost language, it is a pain she understands but one she wishes neither of them had to know.

\---- ---- ---- ----

Kara was grateful for all the pain she’d endured, it was a reminder of what she survived, of the life she chose in spite of it and the love she gave because of it.

But there isn’t any pain anymore now and a part of her is grateful for that too.

She closes her eyes and wishes one more time for Alex to hold her hand, to see Lena’s smile, to feel Eliza’s warmth. She tries to remember the comfort of J’onn’s voice and the sound of Winn’s laugh. She closes her eyes and says goodbye to each of them with words none of them will ever hear.

And then all alone, she tries to find solace in the memory of language and things already lost.

She asks for Rao’s forgiveness.

She asks for him to accept her from this darkness and into his light.

She recites the prayer for the dead, the one Alex had promised she would say for her.

But for a second above the shaking whisper of her own voice, she thinks she hears her name.

For a second, she thinks she feels someone next to her.

And then, as if the gods were taunting her, for just a second she sees her sister’s face one last time.

\---- ---- ---- ----

Alex’s hands hesitate, unsure of where they are needed most as she tries to make sense of all the blood she sees. 

But Kara’s chest is rising to shallowly, her heart beating too quickly for her to wait any longer. So, she swallows thickly, takes a deep breath, and she tries to steady her hands as much as she can as she pulls at the tear in Kara’s suit ripping the fabric along the jagged line under her ribcage. The skin underneath is cold and pale and mottled with bruises and she can see the blood flowing from the wound at her side in time with the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

Her body is still fighting, but Alex knows that Kara's mind is somewhere else, her eyes fixed at a point far past her, but still she tries.

“Kara, look at me, come on. I’m here now okay, I’m here.”

She looks at the blood on the crest of Kara’s suit and glances over her shoulder briefly at Reign’s hollow eyes, and the thought of what happened, of what Kara must have had to do, makes her feel sick.

Alex's hands press over the wound staining them the same deep crimson of Kara’s cape as her back presses into the ground trying to retreat from the pain as cobalt eyes finally shift from the darkness above them.

“Kara.”

“Al-alex?”

“Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay.”

She takes one of Kara’s hands, easing it open and pressing it where her own had just been —anything is better than nothing.

“You have to hold on Kara. You can’t let go you hear me.”

Alex watches as her sister's hand slips but then stops, her fingers gripping as much as they can on the slick expanse of torn skin.

“Al-alex? I-I d-don’t want to to go. P-please don’t make me go.”

She sees Kara’s other hand trying to reach toward her and Alex takes it, giving them both just one more second together in case it’s the last they get.

“You’re not going anywhere without me, okay?”

Kara nods weakly, but Alex doesn't know if she understands her at all. If she knows that she is even really there with her at all.

She lets go reluctantly and rips the electrodes from her pocket placing them quickly on Kara’s temples. She turns the dials to the setting Lena made sure she memorized and pushes the button on the side without any more hesitation.

She meets her sister's distant blue gaze one more time and watches Kara’s body arch up from the ground before the darkness gives way to a flash of blinding white light.

\---- ---- ---- ----

Kara knew Alex wasn’t there.

She couldn’t be.

But Kara wanted to let herself believe she was.

She wanted to let herself believe she wasn’t alone after all.

And so she allowed herself the illusion of her sister’s comfort. 

She felt Alex’s hands running over her arms, wiping tears from her eyes. She felt them warm against her skin and imagined it was all real, but then the comfort turned into pain, and something about the pain made her realize that it was.

“Al-alex?”

And all the sudden she isn’t ready to go.

“Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay.”

She feels Alex take her hand.

“You have to hold on Kara. You can’t let go you hear me.”

She feels her press it into her side and she can feel the pain again, feel it under her own hands now.

She isn’t ready to go.

“Al-alex? I-I d-don’t want to to go. P-please don’t make me go.”

Kara tries to lift her other hand. Tries to hold onto Alex afraid that if she doesn’t then this all really is just some illusion. 

But then she feels Alex’s touch again, hears her voice again... “You’re not going anywhere without me, okay?”…believes it again.

\---- ---- ---- ----

Images flash in front of Kara's eyes; harsh sounds assault her ears. An aching, throbbing pain punctuates her thoughts. She can't see Alex anymore as the lights and sounds keep fading in and out around her.

Alex is gone, but then Lena is there and she looks so scared. Kara hated that she looked so scared.

She feels the pain erupt again as a heavy weight bears down on her chest. Cold sweat rolls down her face, stinging her eyes, and she digs her fingers into her palm trying to push the pain out of her mind.

It was so bright, too bright for her to be in Juru anymore.

But if she wasn’t in Juru, then why was there so much pain.

Kara closed her eyes. She couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t stop her heart from beating so fast.

The light started to give way to darkness again, but she didn’t want to go back. 

She wanted to stay here with Alex and Lena.

It didn’t matter that there was pain.

\---- ---- ---- ----

Lena felt her breath catch in her throat when Kara’s eyes suddenly opened. But they weren’t the clear blue she remembered, they seemed clouded by something unseen, darting side to side as if not really seeing anything at all.

It was then that Lena felt something warm under the hand at Kara’s side replacing the startling cold of her skin. Lena looked down, staring blankly at the blood spreading from underneath her hand as Kara’s body shook under her touch. On reflex, she pushed against Kara’s side, but the hero only trembled further, her eyes closing tightly against the pain Lena knew she was causing, but something inside her was telling her not to let go. 

Lena stared at her hands as if they and Kara were the only thing that existed.

Then she felt something on her shoulder, heard her name being called, but she didn’t move. It was then that another hand covered hers adding to the effort to keep Kara alive and for the first time Lena looked up from her blood-soaked hands. Alex stood next to her, her lips tracing the sound of Lena’s name before everything finally came into focus again, but still it didn’t make sense.

“Lena, I need you to let go. We need to take her.”

Lena looked at Alex and back at her hands, saw them useless in stopping the blood pooling underneath them.

It was wrong. This was all so goddam wrong.

Slowly she lifted them as if moving any faster would break the tenuous thread that was keeping Kara together.

She pulled her hands away and as soon as she did she felt someone pull her back.

Kara should have been fine.

She was back.

She was back, and everything should have been fine.

She shouldn’t be in pain.

She shouldn’t be bleeding out under her sister’s hands anymore.

Lena desperately tries to wipe the blood away but she can’t get rid of it.

She feels herself pulled back again, a weight on her shoulders pushing her down until she is sitting.

She looks up and sees J’onn kneeling in front of her and the questions she so desperately needs answers to stumble out through gasping breaths.

“She isn’t healing. She should be healing. I-I thought, she was supposed to start healing.”

Lena knew Kara had been hurt, knew her body had started to shut down, she had stared at the monitors, had counted every breath, every heartbeat. But Kara wasn’t in that place anymore. She was here with them. She was here and she was supposed to be okay.

“Lena, look at me. Her cells are too depleted, we have sun lamps but they aren’t going to work fast enough. Alex and Brainy are going to take her and stop the bleeding. She just needs time, we just have to give her a little more time.”

And Lena thinks how much of her life has already been wasted hoping for more time.

She tries to stand up, legs shaking underneath her.

“I can help them. I have to help them.”

But J’onn’s gentle hands reach up to stop her.

“You got her back Lena. You got her back, and now we’re going to make sure you don’t lose her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It always makes my day when you guys leave comments and kudos so feel free to leave one if you want. 
> 
> Coming up: Kara and Lena will have to finally face their own truths as well as each other's.


	11. the pain of living

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is more than one kind of pain.
> 
> Update: Some small edits made to fix some grammar and change a couple sentences I wasn't happy with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so here we are, one more chapter closer to the end. Thanks as always to everybody for their kudos and comments and especially those of you who have stuck with this fic from the beginning.
> 
> I also wanted to say that after this I am going to try to write some more for "How Living Feels" so if you guys have any ideas to throw my way feel free to head on over to that fic and leave me a comment. You can always send me a message over on fanfiction.net too if that works better.

The shadows shift behind her, the sky outside clear and bright and unknowing of the darkness it had just contained.

Lena sits beside Sam's bed, a hand resting on her friend's arm as she runs her hand gently through her daughter's hair while she lays against her.

It had felt wrong to feel as happy as she did when she had pulled Sam toward her finally, a part of her wanting it to be Kara in her arms instead, a part of her still wondering if she would ever get the chance to again.

Still, she looks at Sam with Ruby held safely in her arms and she knows it's this moment that she had wagered everything for, knows it's what she thought she had lost the chance to do, knows it means that despite everything against her, Kara had kept her promise to Sam. But what Lena realizes now is that Kara may have made that promise to Sam but she made it for her, made it to protect her from her own heart and her own fears, that she made it to keep another promise — one Lena thought she had broken but that she knows now she was willing to die to keep.

Lena thinks about Kara bleeding out in front of her, thinks how it could have been the last memory of her she had and tries to hide it somewhere so deep inside her that it can't be felt. She hasn't seen her since, knows only from J’onn’s brief updates and Winn’s hurried words that they are still waiting for her to be more stable before she can be with her again.

Eventually, it's Winn who comes to get her, silently placing a shaking hand against the small of her back as he guides her, trying to offer her what little comfort he has to give when he too is still trying to make sense of everything that’s happened. 

Lena hesitates when they stop at the door, her eyes drawn to the outline of Alex's back silhouetted against the glow of the sunlamps in the otherwise darkened room, her shoulders are slack in a way that has either admitted defeat or accepted relief. And Lena wasn't sure if she was ready for the answer. Not when she can still see the blood on Alex's clothes, not when she can still feel the same blood on her own hands.

Winn squeezes her hand gently — one last bit of comfort before he leaves her alone again— and she wishes she had something to give him in return but all she has to offer is her thanks; not just for being with her then, but for helping to bring Kara back to them all. And when he gives her a small smile in return she thinks that maybe that was enough. 

She stays just outside still, stranded with all the thoughts and questions she is afraid to say aloud and wanting to give Alex the time she needs with her sister. But then Alex turns toward her , slightly stepping to the side in a simple gesture that seems to offer a silent acceptance of Lena's place in Kara's life. 

She finally steps into the room standing next to Alex as her eyes remain on Kara. Lena studies her face under the amber lights. She looks so different now from the last time she saw her. All the traces of fear and pain and blood are gone now but still, and like everything else that has happened, it feels all wrong.

She wonders if there are words to say. Thinks that if there are that she does not know them. But she needs to say something if only for all this to feel real, if only because she still feels numb.

"I don't hate her."

Alex doesn't look at her though, she just steps forward closer to Kara instead.

"I know."

She steps up next to her.

"But I am angry."

"I know."

Lena pauses but continues, needing Alex to understand.

"For so long she was the only person in my life who never lied to me. But then…" she trails off, her eyes wandering to the torn and bloodied suit that now lay discarded like so many of the secrets they had both tried to keep from each other.

Alex finishes her thought.

"But then you realized she had been lying to you all along."

And Lena remembers the pain in Alex's voice as she had called out her sister's name in front of her without even realizing it.

"Yeah."

But Alex looks at her with nothing but understanding in her eyes.

"How long have you known?"

She thinks about it carefully. It's a question she's asked herself over and over, a question she isn't sure she really knows the answer to. Maybe she had always known, maybe it was accepting it that was hard.

"I think for longer than I was willing to admit."

Alex nods as she looks back at her sister.

"How long have you loved her?"

And Lena doesn't even think this time.

"I think for longer than I was willing to admit."

\---- ---- ---- ----

Alex looks at Kara and she thinks of what Lena said and realizes it's another kind of pain; another part of their pasts that they share. Because she still remembers Kara as she broke down in front of the image of her mother, still remembers the look in her eyes after she took the only family she had left from her; because Clark abandoned her, because her parents disillusioned her, and because Kara has had to forgive everyone she's ever loved. 

And she knows there is more than the need for forgiveness between them, but she thinks at least she can tell Lena this to prove to her that Kara deserves a chance at the time needed for the rest of it.

"You know, you were the only person that never lied to her too."

Lena turns to face her, her eyes leaving Kara for the first time.

Alex takes a deep breath.

"Forgiveness causes its own kind of pain, its own burden, but Kara has never let herself feel it. She's hardened herself to it because forgiveness is less painful to her than loss. But she knows now how much it could hurt, what that type of pain felt like, and she hated herself for not realizing sooner, for not understanding the kind of pain she would be causing you."

And Alex knows then, in the gentle way that Lena takes Kara's hand after that, that some part of Lena had already started to forgive her and that even without asking her to — and maybe without even realizing it — Lena had long since accepted the burdens Kara was trying to protect her from.

\---- ---- ---- ----

Lena sits with Kara's hand in both of hers, holding it tightly whenever she feels the need to be reminded that she was still there, that they hadn't lost each other yet like she knew they both feared.

She stays next to her as one hour becomes two and then four, as day turns over into night. She stays until Kara starts to wake up. But when she does it's like a part of her is still somewhere far away inside herself struggling to find a way out; her hands pulling at the sheets underneath her, her head trying to turn toward the sound of Alex's voice, the traces of words neither of them understands spoken between uneven breaths. And it isn't until her eyes open for the first time, just for a few seconds, that Lena lets herself believe that Kara knows they are there with her and that she doesn't think she is still stuck in that place anymore. 

After that Kara seems to try harder to hold onto the moments she is there with them. Slowly she starts to return Lena’s grip on her hand when she holds it, slowly she starts to lean into Alex's touch when her fingers brush the hair from her forehead — slowly she comes back to them. And then there’s a moment when they are alone that Kara's eyes find hers, and even without words, Lena knows from the look in her eyes that she remembers what happened, that she is struggling to believe it was real, that she is trying to ask if it was. 

And she is thankful she is at least able to give her the answer she does, understands how easily the words could have been untrue.

"She's gone. They're all gone, and we're all okay."

Kara's eyes blink closed for a second in quiet relief and open again to reveal that they are once again the familiar shade of blue that Lena remembers and not the pale gray she has tried to forget.

She doesn't say anything else after, just lets them both feel grounded in the feeling of gentle touches, and it's then, for the first time since she heard Alex say Kara's name, that she doesn't feel numb anymore.

\---- ---- ---- ----

Kara tries to remember the feeling of Alex's hands pressing into her side. Tries to remember the scared look on Lena's face. She tries to remember them there with her, tries to remember if it was real, hopes that the pain means that it was. But the darkness feels real too. The memory of a starless sky just as clear as the bright lights and white walls.

There are brief moments when she feels the world around her again, seconds when she is sure she is safe despite how hard it feels to even breathe, but eventually, the darkness always comes again.

So she slowly learns to welcome the pain, tries to hold onto it as long as she can because with it comes the sound of Alex's voice, with it she can feel Lena's pulse under her fingers, with it she at least knows she's alive.

And when the pain finally outweighs the darkness, it's Lena whose there, who reaches out and takes her hand. And Kara wants to ask her if any of it was real. If Reign was dead, if Sam was safe, if Alex was okay…. if it was all finally over.

But each breath is enough effort on its own, and her lungs ache too much for anything more.

Still, somehow Lena knows the words that are too hard for her to say and the question she feels afraid to ask.

"She's gone. They're all gone, and we're all okay."

And she feels her eyes close, feels herself take the next breath just a bit deeper, feels the weight become just a bit lighter and the world just a bit clearer.

She opens her eyes again wanting more time, more words to tell Lena the truth, to give her everything she owed her, to ask her to accept the pain of forgiving her and the burden of loving her.

And she worries that it still won't be enough, that there isn't enough time and there aren't enough words, but she sees something just then in Lena's eyes that gives her at least the hope that there is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After tonight's episode, I think I want to fit the reveal of Lena's backstory into the final chapter but what do you all think? 
> 
> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated.


	12. Forgiveness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara and Lena learn what forgiveness can mean.
> 
> Update: edited to include a kiss at the end because you guys asked for it :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, for better or worse here's the last chapter.
> 
> Basically, I was just getting ready to finally write the last chapter of a story when 4x07 aired, and I thought Lena's backstory would actually make for a good way to add some resolution and understanding to both their arcs. *crosses fingers* Hope it worked. 
> 
> Endless thanks to everybody and especially those of you who have left comments and feedback, it sounds kind of cheesy, but it really does make me want to keep writing when I know you all are reading and enjoying these stories.

Lena spends a lot of time thinking about what Alex said. 

Spends a lot of time thinking about forgiveness; the pain of it, the need for it, the want of it. 

She thinks about the things she is trying to forgive. 

But she isn’t sure she knows what forgiveness would feel like anymore. 

That maybe what she thought was forgiveness was really absolution, that we can absolve others but we can only forgive ourselves.

And maybe then it was really for forgiveness that she needed to save Sam. 

And maybe even then it was for the forgiveness of something else. 

Maybe that’s why she risked so much, why she felt the need to risk it alone, because if Kara had been lying to protect her from the burdens of her past, then maybe so was she. 

\----- ----- ----- ----- 

Kara thinks about the things she felt she could accept. 

She thinks about the things she thought could be enough but weren’t.

She thinks of Lena. 

Thinks of the last time she saw her. 

Thinks of the broken apologies and half told truths left between them — words spoken with the promise of meaning but holding nothing of their own to offer. 

And she is both thankful and not that she hadn't been able to hear her heartbeat then, couldn’t tell if she was anxious or scared or hurt, because the only thing Kara had never wanted to have to save Lena from was herself.

She closes her fists feeling the strength they once again contained

But now she wasn’t even sure which part of herself she was trying to protect her from anymore. 

She remembers what she told Eliza last year. 

_I'm just accepting the fact that I'm not human. And if I am going to do the things I have to do, I have to walk away from certain vulnerabilities.’_

Wonders if loving Lena is something she would ever be able to walk away from. 

But then a gentle knock draws her from her thoughts and to her door. 

And when Kara sees Lena on the other side, hears the tentative question and the desperate need it hides …“I was wondering if you would go somewhere with me?”…she realizes that she already knows that she wouldn't. 

\---- ---- ---- ---- 

Lena takes Kara to a hillside just far enough outside the city that the lights are too distant to block the stars. 

They stand together, shoulders barely touching as if drawn to the comfort of each other even when neither knew how to ask for it.

She thinks about the stars and all they have been witness too — all the confessions they must have heard. Thinks that maybe that’s why she brought Kara here. 

She looks out at the city barely there in front of her, wonders how many others there are looking for absolution, searching for forgiveness, wonders how many of them ever find it. And just before her voice breaks the silence, she wonders if she can be one of them. 

“I was four years old when my mother died”

Kara’s eyes shifted to hers. 

“We were visiting family. Somewhere by the water, a lake I think. It was…was so green, you know. It wasn’t a very bright day, it was so overcast. But my mother used to say that’s where the magic was. It was the rain that made the green.”

She pauses, trying to keep the tears in her eyes from falling. 

“She went swimming, but she-she didn’t come back.”

Kara’s hand is on hers then, “Lena…” and a part of her wants to let her stop her from the rest, wants her to reach out and hold her and forget everything else, wants her to protect her like she promised she would. But she can’t stop now. If she stops, she isn’t sure she’ll ever tell anyone. 

“I was there. I was with her on the shore when she went in, and when she went under, and I did nothing. I didn’t run. I didn’t cry. I just stood there.”

And God, how many times she must have imagined she did. How many times had she heard her voice call out for her mother? How many times could she feel the cold water against her legs as she waded into the lake?

But what would it have changed?

Maybe nothing. 

Maybe everything. 

“What kind of child doesn’t run to their mother or scream for help? I…I know — I knew something was wrong, and I did nothing. I just watched her die.”

And she thinks that even if she couldn’t have saved her mother, that maybe she could have at least saved herself. 

She wonders if that’s what she’s doing now. If she’s still trying to save herself after all these years.

“And afterward, I was brought to this terrible family. And I have spent my life fighting their legacy, and their crimes, and their evil deeds. But I-I’ve always known that deep down inside…that I belonged to them.”

And maybe she is asking Kara to save her now instead. 

“I just didn’t want you to see it too.”

\----- ----- ----- ----- 

Kara watches Lena, sees the distant look in her eyes as she remembers all the pain that she held back for so long. And she knows that type of pain isn’t easily forgotten; isn’t ever forgiven. She knows because it’s the kind of pain she’s tried to hide herself, to forgive it in herself. 

She remembers Lena’s readiness to accept the guilt of Jack’s death, of the city’s anger. Remembers when Lena told her to stop believing in her, that she wasn’t worth it. And she understands then that Lena needed to save Sam because she was trying to save a part of herself; that every weight she carried, every good thing she ever saw Lena do was to prove the innocence of that little girl she once was and the woman she is now. 

But Kara doesn’t tell her it’s okay, she doesn’t tell her that the past doesn’t matter anymore, she doesn’t promise her things that in the end mean nothing. Instead, she does the only thing she’s ever felt could make the pain less, she proves to Lena she isn’t alone.

Kara steps toward her, doesn’t give her time to pull away, doesn’t give her time to worry that she had been right. And she feels Lena’s desperation to be proven wrong as soon as her arms wrap around her, feels her hand gripping at the back of her shirt, struggling for purchase, for something besides her pain to hold onto. 

She can hear the pounding of Lena’s heartbeat in her ears, feels it under her hands. She feels her own heartbeat quicken in return, feels it echo the frantic need to be closer to Lena, feels it’s weight and its scars, wonders if it is enough to offer; if after everything the truth is still enough to offer. 

“I was thirteen.”

Her voice is quiet, the words hesitating to be let go of, and if they weren’t this close to each other she isn’t sure they could be heard. 

“I was thirteen when my parents knew there was nothing they could do to save me except send me away.” 

Lena holds her tighter, tucks her head under her chin, and Kara thinks how she is holding her so tight she can almost feel it, wishes she could. 

“I knew what was happening, I knew our planet was dying, I knew what that would mean. But I didn’t do anything. I didn’t try to stop them. I didn’t tell anyone else. I let them lie to everyone they were sworn to protect.”

Kara looks up at the stars above them, searching for the light that still haunts her like a ghost. 

“And then I watched as they said goodbye and I knew, I knew I would never see them again, and still I didn’t do anything. I didn’t hold onto them. I let go. I let go and I let them die without me.”

Lena lifts her head from Kara’s chest, brings her eyes up to look at her. 

“I never asked to survive. I never asked to be a God. I’m just the one who’s left.” 

And Kara needs her to understand that, needs her to know the secrets she kept had nothing to do with trust. 

“ And it feels like everyone I love has lost something because of me. They’ve sacrificed something for me. And I let them. But I didn’t ever want you to have to lose something because of me. And I was scared of loving you because I’m scared of being the one who survives again. I’m scared of being the one who’s left again.”

\----- ---- ---- -----

Kara thinks about the things she felt she could accept.

The pain of surviving, the burden of it, the fear of it.

She thinks about the things she’s kept hidden and the things she’s lost.

But then she looks down and sees Lena in her arms and thinks of all the things surviving has given her, that for everything she’s lost there is something else she has found.

\----- ----- ----- -----

Lena has spent a lot of time thinking about forgiveness.

The pain of it, the need for it, the want of it.

But it isn’t until that moment, lying there in Kara’s arms, her head resting over her heart and both their eyes turned to the sky above them — to the stars that had just been witness to a different kind of confession — that she thinks maybe she finally understands the truth of it, that loving each other is the only way to finally forgive themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading...let me know if you like the ending. 
> 
> Also, a heads-up, that I am probably going to post this chapter (or a very slightly modified version of it) as a one-shot called "Forgiveness" for readers that might want to read a different take on Lena's backstory reveal without having to read all 11 other chapters of this. Just letting you know so you don't read-it and feel dupped.


End file.
